In general, there are printers having a construction by which printing etc. are effected by means of pens, which are a kind of device outputting various sorts of information.
A printer using these pens is so constructed that pen chuck mechanisms are mounted on a carriage moving relatively with respect to a surface to be printed, a plurality of pens having different colors are mounted on these pen chuck mechanisms, respectively, and printing is effected by selecting a pen having a color to be printed so that color printing can be easily effected.
However, in a printer using conventional pens, printing etc. is effected by using special pens prepared separately for each model of printers and it was not possible to effect printing etc. by means of pens sold in the market. Of course, it was not possible to select freely the nature of the ink and the size of printed letters. Further, in a prior art printer printing etc. only of colors previously prepared can be effected and it is impossible to effect printing of a color selected freely amoung color pens sold in the market. In addition, according to the prior art techniques, since every pen was formed to be small in order to mount a plurality of pens on a pen chuck mechanism, the amount of ink was small, ink was often exhausted in the course of a printing etc., which obliged exchange of the pens. Furthermore it was feared that discontinuity was produced in the print due to the exchange of pens.